


The Two Magicians

by gamerfic



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, Elvhenan, F/M, Fade Sex, Pre-Canon, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 15:01:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8166046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamerfic/pseuds/gamerfic
Summary: And he said, “Bide, lady, bide,There's nowhere you can hide.For the lusty smith will be your loveAnd he will lay your pride.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dawnstonedagger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawnstonedagger/gifts).



In the dark of night, through the impossible cities and the primeval forests of Elvhenan, Solas is being hunted.

He cloaks himself in the energies of the Fade, masking himself and his magic with the essence of shadow and secrecy. It is a temporary solution at best. He and Ghilan'nain have contested this same chase many times before. She has had his scent all along, and it is useless to hide or to plead for mercy. Solas will not fall back on Mythal's protection, any more than Ghilan'nain will beg Andruil for sanctuary. Indeed, he has long suspected that their respective mistresses encourage these duels as proof of their servants' strength.

She is drawing nearer now. He cannot stay here. He pulls more magic from the Fade and re-sculpts his body. Bones shrink and hollow, joints reshape themselves, feathers sprout from his arms. He is a bird now, light and slight, and he spreads his newly-made wings and leaps into the air. He turns the concealing darkness surrounding him into an updraft, lets it carry him higher and higher in ever-widening circles. But when he extends his senses behind him, she is there, in the shape of a larger and swifter bird of prey. She's closing the gap. He needs a new strategy.

Solas pulls his wings in close to his sides and pitches forward into a sharp, abrupt dive. The ground rushes up to meet him. He changes shape again as he plummets, his limbs lengthening, his feathers vanishing, fur sprouting to cover lean compact muscles. By the time he lands, rolling rapidly forward with the momentum of the drop, he has become a rabbit darting through the underbrush between thousand-foot-tall trees. He sprints, leaping and bounding over obstacles, propelled past the limits of endurance by his magic. But the foliage behind him rustles, and he hears the baying of hounds on the wind and knows he has been spotted. Ghilan'nain has become a pack of hunting dogs, running him down, gaining on him.

So he skids to a stop, curls in around himself, and shrinks even smaller, until all of Elvhenan overshadows him. He is an insect now, many-legged and many-eyed, scuttling unobtrusively across the forest floor. A massive, flowering tree is just ahead. He walks up its side, his feet adhering to the rough black bark. But as he scurries toward an upper branch where he can better observe his opponent, a long sticky strand of something whips around his torso and restrains him. He follows the thread back to where Ghilan'nain is slowly paying out silk from her spinnerets. She has taken the form of a sleek, venomous spider, and she is steadily weaving him into her web.

The time has come for drastic action. Solas gathers his magic to him once more and lets go of his physical self entirely. He casts his consciousness into the rocks and the air and the water and the fallen leaves. He becomes a spirit of the forest itself. _She won't find me here,_ he thinks with satisfaction. But he soon feels unexpected heat in one segment of his territory, sees red light reflected in the distant crystalline mountains, and knows he has not shaken her yet. Now she has become a tiny spark of flame kindled in one of his dead dry trees. She is gradually growing into a blazing inferno, and she will not hesitate to burn him to cinders if he lets her.

So he transforms himself into a song, complex and disquieting and carried on the breeze. He floats amidst the swirling host of spirits permeating every inch of Elvhenan, passing across the minds and lips of every being who hears him. But before long another tune joins his. Sometimes its notes harmonize with his in dramatic, unexpected ways. More often it is a harsh, dissonant countermelody, competing with him and threatening to overwhelm him. He tries to modulate, to change tempo, to become a variation on himself. He fails. He can no longer flee nor disentangle Ghilan'nain's music from his own. She is matching his every move, sticking to him as closely as a cake sticks to a griddle. He has no choice but to confront her.

In an instant he reclaims his physical form, and senses that she has done the same. They face each other in the center of a clearing, the monolithic trees of Elvhenan looming over them, magic boiling between them. They have taken their most comfortable shapes now, he as the wolf and she as the halla, and they collide in a clash of muscle and jaws. His claws and teeth are sharper than hers, but she has long horns to score his belly and heavy hooves to trample him. No halla will submit to anyone it does not first deem worthy.

The chase has exhausted him. He cannot best her. When she presses the points of her antlers against his exposed throat, he wearily rolls over and surrenders. Her magic breaks over him, subsuming him, pulling them both into their true elven forms. Her beautiful face splits open in a feral, triumphant grin as she straddles him and sets more spells to work on him. She will do with him as she wishes now, taking and giving pleasure by her command alone, freeing him from her tender trap only when she has had her fill of him. _Ghilan'nain,_ thinks Solas as the first ecstasies claim him, _you have mastered me this time. Take me. Have your way with me. But know that when we meet again, you will be the prey and I the hunter._

**Author's Note:**

> The inspiration for this fic and its title derives from [the British folk song "The Two Magicians."](https://mainlynorfolk.info/lloyd/songs/thetwomagicians.html) [Here's one recorded version.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw2sc4uJte8)


End file.
